Social learning in smallholder agriculture: the struggle against systemic inequalities

Abstract

Purpose -Ethiopia operates a large agricultural extension service system. However, access to extensionrelated knowledge, technologies and agricultural inputs is unequally distributed among smallholder farmers. Social learning is widely practiced by most farmers to cope with this unequal distribution though its practices have hardly been documented in passing on knowledge of agriculture and rural development or embedding it into the local system of knowledge production, transfer and use. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to identify the different methods of social learning, as well as their contribution to the adoption and diffusion of technologies within Ethiopia's smallholder agricultural setting.Design/methodology/approach -A mixed methods approach was used, comprising farmer and expert interviews, focus group discussions, informal individual discussions and key informant interviews. The data were documented, coded and later analyzed using SPSS and ATLAS.ti.Findings -The findings showed that 55 per cent of the farmers in the studied areas fully relied on social, community-level learning to adopt agricultural technologies, while 35 per cent of them relied on social learning only partly. Farmers acquired knowledge through social networks by means of communication, observation, collective labor groups, public meetings, socio-cultural events and group socialization. Informal institutions such as iddir, debo and dado, helped farmers learn, adopt and diffuse technologies. Originality/value -This study used the concept of epistemic oppression by Dotson (2014) as a conceptual framework to examine farmers' access to extension services and to analyze how informal institutions serve as workplace learning for the smallholder farmers. The authors suggest community-level social learning serves This study is part of the interdisciplinary research project "Improving Food Security in Africa through increased System Productivity of Biomass-based Value Webs" (BiomassWeb, see www. biomassweb.org) at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, under the Work Package 7.1: Follow the Innovation -Collective Learning, Change Adaptation and Transition Management in Ethiopia. BiomassWeb is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), for which the authors are grateful. The first author extends his gratitude to the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) for hosting during the write-up phase. The authors are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers' comments that helped them to enrich the paper.

Agricultural extension approach: evidence from an Integrated Soil Fertility Management Project in Ethiopia

“…The training process is always learner centered, wherein a model farmer facilitates the experiential learning process. Learning from peers instead of other actors is simpler and more engaging for the farmers [22] . FFSs are farmer-monitored units where management decisions are taken during meetings and discussions.…”

“…The effects of a social network are captured in the network analysis of social learning [28] . As noted by Leta et al, adoption refers to the choices that individuals make about accepting or rejecting an innovation [22] . The diffusion theory describes how an innovation spreads through a population [29] .…”

“…The three ISFM + ambassadors, appointed in each kebele, further strengthen the diffusion of technologies to the marginalized social groups. Informal institutions such as CBOs, especially a self-help association (iddir) and collective labor groups (dado), complement the formal setups in collective action, learning, and technology transfer for rural development and agricultural extension [22] .…”

The socio-political dimensions of agricultural technology promotion in Ethiopia

“…This research explores the role of opinion leaders in the diffusion of the malt barley technology in a highland community in South Ethiopia that is characterised by constraints in information availability (de Roo et al 2019;Leta et al 2018) and imperfect input and output markets. Both questions will be addressed in the specific context of information asymmetry and imperfect input and output markets.…”

“…Development groups were a revitalised form of the indigenous institutions used for collective labour (dado and debo 5 in Oromiya and Amhara respectively), linking households to the lower tiers of the decentralised governance system (Leta et al 2018).…”